Age of Darkness Volume 1

Zenescope is definitely more than just sexy covers. The Age of Darkness story pulls from all corners of the Zenescope universe, and the creative teams do a great job of staying true to the characters as to how they have been written in other books. Worth reading. Buy this book.

Zenescope's Grimm Universe is becoming a pretty complicated place, but this volume helps set the stage for the future.It appears that the "Age of Darkness" title extends to all four Realms, (Oz, Neverland, Wonderland and Myst), and involves almost all of the Grimm characters and especially the Realm Knights. Zenescope is building to a big promised Issue 100, which is considered a real milestone. After Issue 100 the Universe will split: it will continue along one line with issue 101 and will continue in a parallel but separate line in the 12 issue "Realm Wars" series.There are three "Age of Darkness" Volumes leading us up to that milestone. This is Volume 1, and includes a one-shot that introduces the Dark Queen and then Issues 94 through 98 of Grimm Fairy Tales. Volume 2, which should come out in August 2014, will include three one-shots - Robyn Hood and two others. Volume 3, which should come out in October 2014, is also composed of three one-shots - an Oz, a Wonderland, and something called Godstorm.So, if you want to set yourself up for Issue 100 and the following Realm Wars, this three volume set seems to be the way to go and this Volume 1 seems to be the most essential of the three Age of Darkness volumes.What do we think of this Volume 1? Well, the Dark Queen emerges from Myst, the least developed of the four Realms. She is set against the Realm Knights and the most prominent Knight is Sela Ward, which is O.K. by me since Sela is my favorite long running character and has pretty much developed as the keystone character to the entire Grimm Universe series.The Dark Queen one-shot gives us the Queen's backstory. Issue 94 sets up some jousting between the Queen's forces and Sela. Issue 95 reintroduces evil Koschei as he teams up with the Queen. Issue 96 offers another test for Sela and brings Helios into the mix. Issues 97 and 98 bring more characters up to speed and further set us up for the Realm Wars.There is a tremendous range of styles represented by the drawings in these issues as well as in the narratives and the written dialogue. From issue to issue the look and tone, as well as the levels of graphic violence, change. To some this can be disconcerting; I like the variety, but that's pretty much a matter of individual taste.Maybe the most useful summary is this - whether you are new to the Grimm Universe, a dedicated fan, or someone who dips in and out, this Volume and probably to a lesser extent Volumes 2 and 3, will set you up for the future of the series. And that's a nice place to be.Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.

This volume begins with a storyteller whose fairy tales are darker than the ones that children typically crave. The storyteller is the Dark Queen, resurrected from the princess who appears in the stories she tells. The resurrection is blamed on tablet computers by a process of reasoning I didn't quite follow. Also to blame are works of fiction in which the hero isn't sufficiently pure (a shot at  Dexter , I guess). When Dark Queenie massacres an angry mob, she becomes a target of the Realm Knights, a lame group of empowered or weaponized world savers. They tend to fade into the background for the rest of the volume but it seems they will eventually return in a future war story that will inevitably be described as epic.The second installment involves some masked dudes who are killing Highborns on behalf of Dark Queenie. The third chapter is told by an old guy in a jail cell who was promised a form of immortality by Death, or someone dressed as the Grim Reaper, assuming the Grim Reaper is a woman with ginormous breasts that are all but falling out of her robe. Who knew that Death has huge boobs? Comes as a bit of a shock, really.Anyway, the old guy's tale eventually ties into the ongoing story, which resumes in the fourth chapter, together with a bunch of new characters. Usually, when a new character appears the reader is given a footnote explaining which issue of which comic explains who the hell this new character might be. That's useful if you happen to own every issue of every comic in the Grimm universe. Anyway, a winter girl battles a fire girl. When the fire girl lights up, all of her clothes burn off, which I regarded as a high point of the volume. The Dark Queen intends to use the fire girl as bait to defeat Helios, who apparently has a thing for hot fire girls. Well, who doesn't?We're told that Helios' story will continue somewhere else (presumably in the upcoming epic) and suddenly installment 5 takes us on a visit to the dentist which leads to a story about a particularly buxom (and deadly) version of the tooth fairy. Installment 6, the most interesting of the lot, explores conspiracy theories, Huckleberry Finn, and domestic drama as people mistake the Highborn for monsters (or maybe that isn't a mistake). The prose is the sixth story is the best in the volume but none of it is bad, even if the stories don't always make sense.With all of its footnotes, cross-references, and digressions, this volume fails to tell a coherent, self-contained story. I could accept that if this were volume 5 of something, but it seems a serious weakness in volume 1. I suspect a reader needs to read everything published within the Grimm universe to make complete sense of any of it. It is a universe into which I only occasionally dip; hence my confusion. If you read within the Grimm universe extensively, your mileage may vary. Despite my frustration and my sense that too much of this volume is silly, I enjoyed the last story and liked enough of the volume as a whole to give it a weak 4 stars.

Love Zenescope brilliant idea